“This character calls me, for a reason, I’m sure,” Pike said in the interview, about her portrayal of Moiraine, the enigmatic Aes Sedai who initiates the series by guiding and guarding the series’ cast against threats large and small. “I’ve played a lot of intelligent women who have suffered a huge amount and I wanted to do something different and explore some different things. And one thing about Moiraine, my character, is that she has tremendous calm. She’s quite enigmatic and very layered. She has many facets. Her outward seeming thing is that she’s very calm and I thought, ‘There’s a reason this has come into my life!’ She is very calm, and yet within her she knows she has tremendous power, and that’s very interesting. It’s a bit like with Marie Curie, when you know you have radium in your hands!”

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Elsewhere in the interview, Pike spoke about the world of the show and Jordan’s novels, as well as themes in the series that make it relevant to audiences today. You can read the full thing here.

The 2021 release date is peppered throughout Balance‘s article, but this release window doesn’t appear to have been confirmed or mentioned by Rosamund Pike herself. We’ve asked Amazon Studios for comment and will update this article accordingly, should we hear back.